Criminal Justice System Reform and Wrongful Conviction

Abstract

the anonymous reviewers for helpful comments, and Khari Brown, Ron Brown, Charlie Elder, and John Strate for information about resources, but takes responsibility for errors, interpretations, and conclusions. This article describes the nature and importance of wrongful conviction as a criminal justice policy issue, the development of an innocence movement to litigate on behalf of potential exonerees and to promote policy issues, the innocence movement's policy and research agenda, and the very small amount of criminal justice research on the issue in comparison to legal and psychological inquiry. A research agenda for criminal justice policy scholars is proposed to explore the innocence movement and its research agenda. Research models from political science and sociology regarding the study of public policy, social movements, and interest groups offer themes and methods that would allow criminal justice researchers to expand their understanding of the criminal justice system's capacity for reform. Network analysis and the diffusion of innovation research are suggested as approaches to examine the context and spread of innocence reforms.

Assessing Compensation Statutes for the Wrongly Convicted

“…Research of this sort can be helpful in developing a more complete understanding of wrongful convictions, including the types of reforms that can address them and move the discussion toward a more theoretical understanding of criminal justice as it relates to actual innocence. Indeed, Zalman (2006) argues that criminal justice scholars need to begin examining wrongful convictions as a policy issue.…”

Advancing Wrongful Conviction Scholarship: Toward New Conceptual Frameworks

“…The federal Justice for All Act of 2004 (Pub. Law 108-405) provides standards and funding for DNA testing for potential innocents and increased compensation for federal exonerees (Zalman, 2006). At least 34 states and the District of Columbia have now taken at least some steps to prevent erroneous convictions (Norris, Bonventre, Redlich, & Acker, 2010, and 29 states and the District of Columbia provide compensation for exonerees (Norris, 2012).…”

“…11. As Zalman (2006) points out, the rhetoric often used "suggests that emotions among innocence activists are akin to those of participants in reformist social movements" (pp. 472-473).…”

“…Since 1989, when post-conviction DNA testing was first used to exonerate an innocent person in the USA, we have seen the growth of an innocence movement. Nationwide, advocacy organizations have formed to litigate on behalf of potentially innocent prisoners, increase public awareness about wrongful convictions, and promote criminal justice policy reforms (Zalman, 2006).…”

“…Notably, this literature has mostly lacked the theoretical grounding expected of social scientific inquiry, or, at the very least, failed to make the theoretical connections explicit. Others have discussed the theoretical weaknesses in the current body of miscarriages literature and suggested that researchers transpose frameworks from other areas or disciplines to the study of wrongful convictions (Leo, 2005;Zalman, 2006).…”